Stalking Death (24 page)

"I was walking across the campus and someone came up behind me and hit me in the head. I put out my hand to break the fall."

"You don't seem very upset about it."

What did he want, some teary, dithering female? "St. Matthews hired me because I'm calm in a crisis."

"Is that right? Even when the crisis extends to attacks on yourself?"

Was he trying to make me mad—it was a trick cops used—or was this just a universal Make Thea Mad Day? I shrugged. "I don't see how that helps anything."

"Having the appropriate feelings when you're a victim of violence? Why not?"

Appropriate according to whose standards? "Look, Lieutenant, I'm happy to cooperate in any way I can with respect to the case you're investigating, but we're both tired and I, at least, intend to get some sleep. So can you ask whatever it is you want to ask and then go?"

Bushnell didn't like that. Probably one of those people who want me to act sweet and docile because I have a pretty face and a big chest. Or was that just my hang-up? Maybe he just liked to run the show and resented that I was trying to do that, too. Sometimes I got tired of trying to figure people out and wondered what profession I could try that was more solitary. Some days, hermit looked very appealing. Anything was bound to be safer than this. But then, say you're a consultant and few people imagine a life full of guns and knives and blows to the head.

"Sandwich?" he said, offering the tray.

"Sure." I leaned forward too quickly and the world blurred. "On second thought, no thanks." I closed my eyes and sank back against the pillows.

"I should take you to a hospital," he growled, bouncing from bully to protector in a breath. The cop, even the good one, is a bit of a two-headed monster.

"I'll be okay. Just... I mean... would you please ask your questions so we can both get some rest?"

So he did, still a little cranky because I wouldn't let him serve and protect. "What can you tell me about the relationship between Shondra Jones and Alasdair MacGregor?"

"Since sometime last spring, Shondra Jones has been the victim of a stalker. Back then, it took the form of harassing phone calls... obscene, sexual in nature, according to her. The school bought her an answering machine so she could screen calls, but then the machine got stolen and she didn't have the funds to buy another."

"There are people on the campus who can confirm this?"

I shook my head, realized my mistake, and held up my hand, waiting for it to clear before I answered. "Both her roommate and her advisor are gone, but the school knows how to reach them... and there were some records." Miriam Chambers might have made them disappear. I didn't say that, though. I was walking a fine line here between what he needed to know and what my client didn't want known. A fine, ugly, murky line that made me feel cheap.

"You've spoken with Shondra? And you believe she
was
being stalked, even though your clients don't agree?"

He made it sound like my clients' behavior was somehow my fault. I didn't take the bait. "Yes."

"Did she tell you her stalker was Alasdair MacGregor?"

"Yes."

"She tell you how she knew?"

"She said she recognized his voice. Look, why are you asking me these things? Why not ask Shondra?"

"I will," he said coldly, "just as soon as I can find her."

"You haven't spoken with Shondra at all?" I couldn't believe it. She was central to all this. What had he been doing all day?

I forgot that cops read minds. "I've tried to find her. No one seems to know where she is. I've talked with people in her dorm. People on her team. Friends of Alasdair's. Friends of Jamison's. People on his team. Trying to build a picture. You know how it works." His tone became accusatory. "You wouldn't happen to know where she is?"

"She's probably still at the hospital."

"The hospital?" Bushnell exploded out of his chair. "What the fuck is going on around here? Everyone knows I'm all over hell and gone, trying to find Shondra Jones and no one bothers to tell me where she is?" His volume hurt my head. Everyone at The Swan, awake or asleep, must have heard what he said.

"Lieutenant, please. We only just found..."

But he was on a tear. "So, have you known all day? Have Chambers and Dunham?"

"She wasn't at the hospital all day." I said. "As far as I know, there's no conspiracy here, they're just a little disorganized."

"Like hell there isn't!" He set down his coffee cup with bang that should have broken it, marched over to the bed, and grabbed me by the shoulders. "I don't know what you people are up to, but I need some straight answers from someone and I'm not leaving until I get them."

Had I really been foolish enough to feel sympathy for this man? "Take your hands off me," I said. I didn't care if everyone in The Swan heard that, too.

"Don't you get it?" he said, leaning into my face and rattling my poor, fragile head. My stomach lurched and twisted. "Somebody is dead and everyone around here acts like they're at an effing tea party."

A fact of life he should have known—you don't shake someone who's had a blow to the head. It's like shaking a bottle of Coke, with uglier results. I clamped a hand over my mouth, hoping I could make it to the bathroom.

"Let me go or watch out!" I said. I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held on.

"All right. You were warned." I dropped my hand.

Some mind reader. Some smart cop. Maybe he was just too tired to be smart. I didn't care. Not about his mood or his pants or his shoes. I'd tried to play fair. He'd made it impossible. As I slammed the bathroom door behind me, he was treating The Swan's guests to curses that would have educated a bunch of stevedores.

Chapter 18

Round Two was a lot like round one, except Bushnell wore a thick terry bathrobe while Mrs. Mitchell dried his pants and socks. "Where were we?" he began at full volume.

"You're making my head hurt." I took a swig from a bottle of seltzer, hoping it would help settle my stomach. He had horny, yellowish nails and pale, dry feet. Much too intimate. A married woman should know no bare feet but her husband's.

"Oh, your head hurts," he mimicked, but at least he used a softer voice. "All right, what's she doing at the hospital and how long have you know where she was?"

I wanted to yell back, but I'd only hurt myself. He had a right to know and I wanted to help—or I had until he was such a jerk. It was bad enough that he'd unfairly assumed I was colluding with my clients to keep information about Shondra from him. But grabbing me? I hated being grabbed. I was too weary to fight, though. I didn't feel like something the cat had dragged in, I felt like something the cat had played with for hours.

"Drug overdose, I think. I... we... Cullin Margolin and I found her in her coach's office about forty-five minutes ago. Maybe an hour, now. We thought she was asleep but we couldn't wake her. Security took her to the hospital."

"Damn. Excuse me." He dialed a number, gave some instructions, then brought his laser-sharp gaze back to me. "How did you know to look there?"

"Don't be so damned condescending, Lieutenant. I knew the same way you would. Common sense, experience, and asking the right questions. I went to her dorm and..." How much of this should I tell? All of it, probably. He'd find it out sooner or later anyway. "There were no residents... no grown-ups in the place. They'd been lured away by phone calls. I made some calls and located them. We got Shondra's door unlocked and found her room had been completely trashed. Everything destroyed."

I stopped there, imagining what it must have been like for Shondra to come upon that mess, so deep into my own thoughts I almost missed his next remark.

"Yeah, I guess that's no surprise," he said. "I hear she has an incredible temper."

"She's tough," I agreed, "but I don't think Shondra did this."

For someone looking for easy answers, it would look like Shondra had done it. She'd been mad and upset enough and she was capable of extremely impulsive behavior. But the residents had been lured away for some reason. She was poor, proud, and, according to Maria Santoro, compulsively neat. And that draped underwear was a red flag.

Then I wondered, was the destruction a cruel act, the revenge Sidaris had spoken of, or was it instead, or also, to cover up a search? If so, a search for what? Hadn't Shondra said something about pictures? Pictures of what? Once the questions started, they just kept coming.

"Oh, you don't. I suppose you have some theory about who did?"

I didn't think saying, 'can the sarcasm' would be helpful, and I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know who had done it. The closest I could come to a theory was the mysterious group Alasdair had formed which the two coaches had alluded to. And it wasn't a developed theory, it was half-baked speculation, gleaned from unhelpful witnesses and a note left on my windshield. It would be ludicrous to suggest it to Bushnell in his present mood. He'd only beat me over the head with more suspicious questions I couldn't answer.

"I'm afraid not."

He tried a few more probing questions to which I had no useful responses and moved on to other subjects. He asked several times, in different guises, what I thought was going on, and what my clients were trying to hide, and a bunch of questions about Jamison Jones and Alasdair MacGregor. I described my conversation with Jamison Jones and confessed to my inability to learn much about Alasdair. Beyond that, most of my answers were versions of "I don't know," which didn't please him much.

I was praying for Mrs. Mitchell to reappear with his clothes, when he circled back around to Shondra again. "So, you've spoken with the Administration, and with Shondra, with her brother, and with other people in her dorm. Based on all of that, did you reach any conclusions about whether Alasdair MacGregor was actually stalking Shondra Jones?"

"Someone was. But people around here are quick to defend Alasdair, so that's as far as I got before they sent me packing."

"Sent you packing?" He shook his head in exaggerated disbelief, studying my green face with hateful intensity. "You sure looked like a member of the team today."

I took another swig of seltzer, wishing it were bourbon instead. But much as I enjoyed Jack Daniels' company, he was even harder to take on a fragile stomach than Bushnell.

"This really isn't relevant," I said.

"Why don't you let me decide. Tell me about getting fired."

I sighed, shrugged, and told.

"So what Chambers said today, about Shondra making it all up... he knows that isn't true. Does he really think I'm so stupid that I wouldn't find out?"

It wasn't a real question. I stared down at his pale toes, wondering if this was going to come back around and bite me on the ass. It would be just like Chambers to fire me again for telling the truth to the police. Tonight's behavior suggested that either he still didn't get what was going on and why he needed me, or that he had some incomprehensible plan of his own which he believed justified shirking all the details of his job.

I wished Andre were here. I wanted to shove Bushnell into the hall, close the door, and ask what
he
thought was going on.

I'm pretty good at clues and cues, but everyone involved in this was an enigma. If Bushnell had some theory I was no better at deducing that than anything else. It could be as simple as that Jamison had done what he did because MacGregor really was messing with his sister.

Even if that was the solution to his murder, there was a lot more going on here. Things I didn't want to get involved in, things I couldn't avoid if part of my job was ensuring that the school's students were safe. Or was this just Thea the Crusader again? Maybe tomorrow, after I'd slept, I would see all this more clearly.

At long last, Mrs. Mitchell knocked on the door, handed in the pants and socks, and beat a hasty retreat. Bushnell thanked me insincerely for my time and cooperation and went into the bathroom to change. When he'd dressed and the door had finally closed on his upright, narrow frame, I wanted to jump up in glee and make rude monkey faces. Instead, I climbed into bed, praying for a dreamless sleep.

Except in the dramatic clincher, when things do occasionally go right for me, I'm not the sort of person whose prayers are answered. My life is more Sisyphean and my dreams are horror shows. Tonight, my wooly brain didn't have the capacity for dreams, good or bad. I felt into heavy sleep which was almost immediately interrupted by the phone. Hoping it was Andre, I roused myself and grabbed it. It was Bobby Ryan, calling to see what time he and I were meeting in the morning and asking, by the way, what all the shouting had been about. I explained about Bushnell, agreed on seven to give us time to gear up for Chambers, and snuggled back into the pillows.